House passes KIDS Act mandating age-gating and identity verification

The KIDS Act represents a fundamental shift in platform liability, forcing streaming and social media providers to transition from anonymous or pseudonymized access to documented identity systems. For the video ecosystem, this entails significant infrastructure overhead for age-assurance tech and increased data breach liability. While framing safety as the goal, the bill's pressure on end-to-end encryption to 'address' harmful content could degrade the privacy of messaging features within streaming communities. Watch for the Senate's response to the absence of a 'duty of care' provision, which currently stalls full legislative reconciliation.

The House's passage of the KIDS Act (H.R. 7757) in June 2026 marks a specific regulatory path that diverges from current Senate proposals. While the House version emphasizes content report response times and parental controls for ephemeral messaging, the Senate’s S. 1748 focuses on a 'duty of care' standard in platform design. Per Legis1 (July 2026), these differences have created a hurdle for final enactment, as Senate sponsors argue the House bill guts key safety protections by excluding design-level requirements.

This federal movement coincides with a wave of state-level age verification mandates reaching critical deadlines. According to Ahoi Kapptn (December 2025), nationwide implementation in app stores began in early 2026 to comply with Texas requirements, effectively forcing platforms to integrate system-side verification APIs from Apple and Google. Furthermore, California’s SB 976, which mandates age verification for 'addictive' feeds, is scheduled for full enforcement by December 31, 2026, per Wikipedia (June 2026).

Industry analysts note that platforms are increasingly caught between conflicting standards. COPPA 2.0, which passed the Senate in March 2026, extended privacy coverage to minors under 17, but the KIDS Act utilizes varied age thresholds across its sub-sections, such as the SAFE BOTS Act and the SCREEN Act (per Usercentrics, April 2026). This fragmentation necessitates that streaming services and social media providers adopt the most restrictive compliance logic to mitigate global and multi-state legal risks.